I took part in the MXTX Remix event, which was my first time doing an exchange like that. It was a cool experience. The author I was assigned has written some absolutely stunning, deep relationship studies and for a while I was just--completely blanking on how I could do them justice with any sort of response.

"at the plinth of greater things" by bloodletter is a nieyao fic, set pre-canon, during Meng Yao's time in the Unclean Realm. There is a brief scene where Mianmian visits (as part of a Jin sect delegation). Usually my brain is set firmly in novel-canon mode and so I don't think of Mianmian as part of the Jin sect, but I decided to take this scene and expand on it from her pov, and try to draw some parallels between her position close to Jin Zixuan, and Meng Yao's with Nie Mingjue. Kind of functioning as an outsider pov to the nieyao relationship, except that she's a canon character? And exploring the question of, what does it mean (what does it look like, to anyone familiar with his father) for Jin Zixuan's closest friendship to be with a woman, when he's been engaged to someone else since birth, and what might that mean for Mianmian?

This is what I wrote: "the one who stays by your side" I feel a little bad that I wrote something this short, but I have been reminding myself that the low wordcount requirement is what let me sign up for the event in the first place, so I shouldn't feel guilty about it.

The original version of the novel had this internal monologue from Jin Guangyao's perspective, right after Mianmian leaves her sect:

In his mind though, he thought, “There you go again, Big Brother. The hell is integrity? Can you eat it? She spent so much time and effort climbing up from a servant to a disciple, but took off her clan’s robes in a moment of anger. Many years of hardships disappeared like running water, and for what? Even if she was displeased, she should have grit her teeth and climbed up even higher, and killed all of the people who mocked her today. Wouldn’t that have been a better way to get rid of her hatred? This beauty is quite foolish. If someone wanted to talk about integrity and honor, they shouldn’t go farther than this.

(translation via qinghe-nie)
It was edited out of the final version, and it only vaguely relates to my fic, but *shrugs* I just think it's neat!

( Under the cut: some fic I've enjoyed reading this week )